All These Years
by Blue Alexandrite
Summary: Just like any other girl in Spira, Rikku grows up, has her own adventures, falling in love for the first time, losing and gaining many things along the way. This is her story. Rated T for language in later chaps.Read and review please!Chap 4 is up!
1. Childhood Years

Rikku was three.

The scorching sun, dry wind and hot sand of Bikanel desert were her surrogate parents, her second family. She was free to roam everywhere she wanted, to run everywhere she liked as long as it wasn't too far away from the guards' hovers, and she loved the freedom. She watched her people digging up strange, funny pieces of metal glistening under the sun with wide-eyed curiosity and soon wanted to try digging herself. Her world was small and hot and sandy but she loved it just as much as she loved her Cactuar plushie from Daddy.

Rikku was four.

Daddy and Brother and practically everybody else loved her, called her the little Chocobo princess, but…..When she saw other kids who played with her in the sand and looked at the beaming faces of their mothers, she gave her Daddy a difficult question.  
" _Frana'c so sysy? E caa so vneahtc ymfyoc pnehk draen sysyc ajanofrana. Tu E ryja hu sysy?" _(Where's my mama? I see my friends always bring their mamas everywhere. Do I have no mama?)

Her Daddy looked so sad all of a sudden, that she feared she'd questioned a question so terribly wrong.

"_Ed fyc vydat, so tyikrdan. Vyda duug ran yfyo vnus ic_" (It was fated, my daughter. Fate took her away from us.)

He held her gently, but Rikku didn't understand. What is fate? Why did it take her Mommy away?


	2. Fated?

Rikku was five.

One day Daddy took her to Uncle Rin's Travel agency and left for some important business. She liked to be there, poking all the tiny colourful decorations and looking at colourful pictures with words she couldn't write all over them. Then suddenly the door was thrown open and her Uncle Rin with some other people dragged in a body draped in tatters of crimson. Droplets of crimson staining the floor made her eyes grow wide. She peeked from behind the reception desk as things became frantic and people started running to and fro. Uncle Rin had always been happy and easygoing, but that evening he wasn't. He shouted orders and people come rushing in with weird-shaped bottles, smelly potions, rolls of bandages, hot water bottles and worried faces. She wanted to see more, but Uncle Rin scooped her up and tucked her to her tiny little bed and told her to sleep.

Everybody was asleep. Everything was dark already. She crept down her tiny little bed and tiptoed outside. Rikku was Rikku, and she was born with great curiosity accompanied with the cunning ability to slip into places grownups didn't want her to be. She opened the room next door. A man was on the bed and rich crimson blood – it reminded her of cooking fire and a bouquet of roses her Daddy once gave her– was everywhere. There was a nasty big gash upon the whole left side of his crimson coat. It scared her at first but Rikku was Rikku, so she didn't turn back.

She heard him grunted.

"Water………."

Rikku hadn't learned much of the Spiran language, but she knew what he asked for. So she moved closer and grabbed the large jug of water on the nightstand, pouring the content into a glass and offered it to the dying man on his deathbed. He turned his head and her little chubby hands shook.

He had only one eye.

His left eye was nowhere to be seen, and there was only a big gash on its place. He totally looked like a gazillion of gashes all stitched up to be the most super-sized _ouch _and _aargh_ that she'd ever seen. But she moved closer still, and carefully let him sip the water ever so slowly. He had no strength left. Even a five year old girl in a Moogle pajama holding a Cactuar plushie could see it. He tried to fix his blurring gaze at her, and the little girl suddenly no longer felt afraid. She touched his cheek gently and asked.

"_Oui yddylgat po y fiend?" _(You attacked by a fiend?)

To her surprise, he replied weakly and hoarsely,

"_Cund uv." _(Sort of)

He spoke Al Bhed, although his hair wasn't blonde and his eye wasn't that swirly tornado-like green.

"_Lyh E ramb ayca ouin byeh?" _(Can I help ease your pain?)

"_E's...hud cina.." _(I'm…not sure..)

"_E...E'mm zicd cdyo fedr oui drah" _(I…I'll stay with you then.)

So she knelt beside the bed and put her Cactuar plushie beside his head before kissing his cheek goodnight.

"_Kad famm cuuh, secdan." _(Get well soon, mister.)

Rikku cried when he was nowhere to be seen in the morning, leaving only a bloodsmeared Cactuar plushie behind. She wondered if fate had taken him away as well.

Rikku was eleven.

She had grown up pretty quickly in all those years. Daddy taught him many things as she was growing up. She learned how to assembly and disassembly bigger, tougher machinas and soon learned to drive a slider. She learned that Spira was in fact much bigger than she had imagined before, that there were so many people living out there and she learned languages other than her Al Bhed mother tongue. Daddy also told her that she had the most beautiful eyes in the world, but out there many people would turn blue with envy at those tornado-like emerald eyes and that's why she must wear her goggles whenever Daddy took her out of the desert.

Rikku was thirteen.

She felt like she had a massive crush ten times the size of Bikanel desert on that boy who loved to play with funny eyepatches. Or maybe it was love, she didn't know. He looked sorta dashing; especially he had known a good way or two with machine guns, which made all the younger kids always flocked to him in awe. Gippal was damn cute and all but she soon found out his ego was damn bigger than Sin itself. Finally she had had enough of it. 

Rikku was fourteen.

One day Daddy came home sad-faced and she asked why. He told her that her cousin Yuna was in training to be a summoner and going to start her suicidal pilgrimage soon. The lovely Yuna, the lovely pretty cousin she'd seen only once or twice during all the years they were apart. Everybody knew what would happen next. She would continue her father's legacy and summon and dance her life away, like a flower that would wither before even blooming. And she swore by the name of all the machinas in Spira, she would do everything she could do to stop it from happening.

Rikku was fifteen.

She had heard of him before, of course. The big bad legendary guardian who once stood by her Uncle Braska's side during his last pilgrimage and all that jazz.

Yeah, the man who failed to keep Uncle Braska alive and was also partially responsible for Yunie losing her Daddy. She had every single reason in the whole Spira to give the man a swift kick in his old ass. Her big chance came when she finally caught up with the pilgrimage at Moonflow.

But when she saw him, she quickly forgot everything about the ass-kicking.

One-eyed.

A big gash across what should be his left eye.

Deep crimson cloak the shade of blood.

She remembered one evening at Uncle Rin's travel agency and the Cactuar plushie with bloodstains no one could wash off.

She remembered what Daddy told him a long time ago.  
_"Ed fyc vydat..."_

Rikku learned a lot.

Rikku learned about a strange feeling that bloomed inside her like a red rose during summer, which she couldn't explain at all. It was different from the feeling she felt for Daddy, or for Brother, or for Yuna and all the friends back home at Bikanel. Even different from what she used to feel for Gippal.

Maybe it was because of the tenderness he showed in Moonflow, when he asked her to show her face.

Or, was it because when she couldn't sleep during that night at Thunder Plains, he let her to sleep by his side and lulled her to sleep with the Hymn of Fayth?

Or maybe, because he still had those damned nerves to look too darn droolable at his mid-thirties?

But he was only a few years her Daddy's junior!

But Rikku was Rikku, and she wouldn't give a damn

Rikku learned so much, even too much, about disappointment and losing. She snapped like a bow pulled too hard, and catapulted herself against him.

"In the name of all Aeons! Ruf luimt oui cyo oui'na yh Unsent? How could you? How could YOU??? HOW COULD YOU???? How dare "

Rikku was sixteen and her world kept on revolving, just like what he said.

Daddy threw a big birthday past for sweet sixteen in Luca, and what a bash it was. Everybody came, Kimahri, Lulu, Wakka, plus more and more people she didn't remember ever knowing. Gifts flooded from all directions, from cute frilly lingerie that made her frown to rare machine parts that made her squeal with delight to that big bad red airship from Daddy which he named Celsius. Everybody smiled and laughed and nodded in agreement when Daddy boasted what a pretty daughter he had.

Rikku laughed along, and never did her laughter sound as fake as that.

Later Daddy started bringing up the subject about introducing her to 'promising boys from promising background, and she didn't say no. She just laughed and twirled her way to her room without an answer. Later he caught her red-handed playing dress-up with the Samurais dressphere and hugging Masamune so dearly.

Nobody brought up the topic of introducing Rikku to potential boyfriends after that.

Rikku was almost seventeen and decided to walk on a new path.

She left home, brought Celsius and brother and Buddy plus that new sword-wielding girl named Paine along. A new rage of sphere-hunting was all over Spira, and there's no way the hyper Al bhed princess would only sit idly at home and watch. Then one day Kimahri showed her that super intriguing sphere he found in Gagazet, and off she went to kidnap dear angsty Yuna from Besaid. 

Rikku was seventeen and Vegnagun was no more than a shitload of crap metal.

Tidus returned, and so did the long-missed Yuna's hearty laugh. Kimahri, Lulu, Vidina, Paine, Baralai, Nooj, Gippal, Tidus, Yuna, Brother, Buddy, Shinra, Daddy, even Barkeep were all there for the victory celebration. But wait a minute. Not Auron.

It was horribly, damnably, unfair.

Everybody had their own private versions of happy endings, even Baralai started dating Paine.

But why not her?

Heroes are made everyday and she can seem them birth right before her eyes in the rocks along Mihen, the pulsing walls of Guadosalam, the arid air of Bikanel, they come out gasping on the shores of the sea and Rikku feels the need to dance renew itself. 

Rikku is no longer seventeen. 

The-woman-of-gardens – her beautiful mother – grins and a old hairbrush she left behind finds its way from Pop's treasure box to hers and every night, her braids are loosened, her spheres come off, and she runs a hundred strokes through her long and unmanageable hair. Rikku doesn't think of herself as a serious girl, but she'll look into her own green spiral eyes and think of a man in red, of what it means to love and not love and all the soft, miscellaneous in-betweens.

Everyone has someone now. They have happy endings, fairy dust and all. And Rikku?

Well, Rikku is Rikku and she's going to do what she's always done.

She's going to find her own story.


	3. Growing Up

Rikku was eleven.

She had grown up pretty quickly in all those years. Daddy taught him many things as she was growing up. She learned how to assembly and disassembly bigger, tougher machinas and soon learned to drive a slider. She learned that Spira was in fact much bigger than she had imagined before, that there were so many people living out there and she learned languages other than her Al Bhed mother tongue. Daddy also told her that she had the most beautiful eyes in the world, but out there many people would turn blue with envy at those tornado-like emerald eyes and that's why she must wear her goggles whenever Daddy took her out of the desert.

Rikku was thirteen.

She felt like she had a massive crush ten times the size of Bikanel desert on that boy who recently often play with them, who loved to play with funny eyepatches. Or maybe it was love, she didn't know. He looked sorta dashing; especially since he had known a good way or two with machine guns, which made all the younger kids always flocked to him in awe. Gippal was damn cute and all but she soon found out his ego was damn bigger than Sin itself. Finally she just had had enough of it.

Rikku was fourteen.

One day Daddy came home sad-faced and she asked why. He told her that her cousin Yuna was in training to be a summoner and going to start her suicidal pilgrimage soon. The lovely Yuna, her lovely pretty cousin, daughter of Uncle Braska that she'd seen only once or twice during all the years they were apart. Everybody knew what would happen next. She would continue Uncle Braska's sad, sad legacy to dance and summon her life away, like a flower that would wither before even blooming. And she swore by the name of all the machinas in Spira, she would do everything she could do to stop it from happening.


	4. Butterfly in Her Belly

Rikku was fifteen.

She had heard of him before, of course. The big bad legendary guardian who once stood by her Uncle Braska's side during his last pilgrimage and all that jazz.

Yeah, the man who failed to keep Uncle Braska alive and was also responsible for Yunie losing her Daddy. She had every single reason in the whole Spira to give the oh-so-great legendary guardian a swift kick in his old ass. Her big chance would come when she finally caught up with the pilgrimage at Moonflow.

But when she saw him, in the name of the holy Aeons, she quickly forgot everything about the ass-kicking business.

One-eyed.

A big gash across what should be his left eye.

Deep crimson cloak the shade of blood.

She remembered one evening at Uncle Rin's travel agency, the crimson shade that reminded her of cooking fire and crazily blooming roses and the Cactuar plushie with bloodstains no one could wash off.

She remembered what Daddy told him a long time ago.  
_"Ed fyc vydat..."_

Rikku was still fifteen and learned a lot about herself.

Rikku learned about a strange feeling that bloomed wildly inside her like a red rose during summer, which she couldn't explain at all. It was totally different from the feeling she felt for Daddy, or for Brother, or for Yuna or Tidus and all the friends back home at Bikanel. Even different from what she used to feel for Gippal. She didn't understand how things could turn out to be so darn complicated.

Maybe because he asked her to show her face so gently at Moonflow, and kept her tornado-ish eyes their little secret.

Or, was it because when she couldn't sleep during that night at Thunder Plains, he let her to sleep by his side and lulled her to sleep with the Hymn of Fayth?

Or, because she knew when those freaky nosy Yevonites dared to give her those cold stares, the big bad legendary guardian would secretly shut their traps up with his death stare?

Or maybe, because he still had those damned nerves to look too darn droolable at his mid-thirties?

But he was only a few years her Daddy's junior!

But Rikku was Rikku, and she wouldn't give a damn.

"Um, hey, Auron……."

"Hmph?"

That 'hmph' again. How often did she wonder if his vocabulary is really THAT limited.

"Erh, well……Yanno, my sixteenth birthday is coming up…."

"…………..And then?"

"I….I wonder if you can, if you wanna come?"

There. She finally said it. Then she stared at her boots for what felt like forever, trying her best not to faint with the tension building up inside her.

Silence.

And there she stood, waiting for Mr. Grouch-Grumpy-Gruffy-Yet-Sexy, feeling like a petrified shoopuf trapped in the middle of a blitzball match.

" I…….cannot promise it, Rikku."

She huffed with disappointment.

"But, I'll make sure to give you the best gift I can get."

Her eyes gleamed and she jumped to give him a big glomp.

"Yayyyyyyyy, thankie-thankie Auron!"


End file.
